1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a message system.
2. Description of Related Art
In general telephone systems, when a person can not answer to an incoming call, a voice message is recorded and the person hears the recorded message later. In this case, a time given for a sender to speak the message is short and thus it is difficult to speak the message appropriately. It is difficult for the person as a receiver of the message to understand the message correctly with ease by listening to the message reproduced as sound. Moreover, the sender can not know whether the massage has been reproduced. This may be a problem when the sender wants to communicate with the receiver urgently.
In a related telephone system, a voice or characters are inputted to generate a message and the message is sent to a receiver. The receiver attempts to communicate with the sender of the message immediately after checking the massage. However, when the receiver fails to communicate with the sender at that time, the receiver often forgets to communicate since the message is buried with many logs of incoming calls. Meanwhile, the sender needs to wait until the receiver checks the message and returns a call.
As related art, Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2003-018332A) discloses a character message system, a terminal apparatus and a switchboard used for the system Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2003-018332A) discloses a method of sending a message as character information to a person who can not answer an incoming call. The message text is generated from characters inputted through operation of keys and the message text is displayed on a telephone of the person. Thus, the message can be understood by the person.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2005-228125A) discloses a client terminal, a service providing server, a service management server, a device control method, a recording medium, and a program. Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2005-228125A) discloses a method in which a reception of new information is mutually notified among a plurality of users. When information is updated through an operation by one of the users, the update data is sent to a server, each of the other users receives the update notice. Thus, each of the other users can know the operation in real time.
Considerations of the present inventor(s) will be described bellow.
Even in the message system of Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2003-018332A), the message may be buried with logs of incoming calls after the message is checked by the receiver of the message. It is inefficient to display a screen showing the logs of incoming calls continuously. It is unnecessary to display a log accompanying no message. Moreover, the sender of the message can not know whether the receiver has checked the message.
In Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P 2005-228125A), it is not considered how to display a plurality of messages shared with different users. Specifically, it is not considered to display the plurality of messages in a list. Moreover, a responding means for responding the message is not considered.